


kelp & salt

by sternfleck



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Hand & Finger Kink, Honeymoon, Just Married, M/M, Mouth Touching, Sexual Tension, Soft Kylux, Walks On The Beach, benarmie, rock collecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26125756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck
Summary: Newlyweds Ben and Armitage are enjoying a summer honeymoon on a cool, rocky beach. Unfortunately for Armitage, Ben likes to collect rocks...which means Armitage finds himself competing with a striking piece of red crystal for his new husband's attention.Or: the absurd, fluffy, rock collector Kylux AU you didn't know you needed.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 17
Kudos: 81





	kelp & salt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [surrenderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/gifts).
  * Inspired by [salt air](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814932) by [surrenderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer). 



> Back to my old tricks, writing vaguely sexy, vaguely cracky soft Kylux to make [surrenderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer) laugh.
> 
> This is set in the same modern 'verse as ["salt air,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814932) which is 574 words of the softest, most calming honeymoon BenArmie you'll ever read (so go read it!). I'm just playing in the box of rocks she gave me.

“It has the right _energy_.” 

“What?!”

Along this rocky, kelp-strewn strip of secluded seashore, the sea air is brisk enough that Armitage has to hug his arms around himself in his wool jumper. He can’t help but feel that if Ben were not so distracted, Ben could put _his_ arms around him instead, thereby solving Armitage’s problem. 

But Ben is distracted. Ben is distracted because they’ve chosen to honeymoon in a seaside town where the beaches below the cliffs are made up of sea-polished stones...and Ben, strangely enough, is fond of collecting rocks.

“Look into the crack down the middle. Is that garnet inside? Red and black, together. Dramatic.”

 _Dramatic_ is a term less well applied to the rock in question than to the man holding it in his enormous palm, as if offering it to Hux as a gift. Dramatic, unreasonable, far too prone to showy gestures and sentimental attachments.

Armitage would be lying to himself if he said none of that had anything to do with why he married Ben.

“Red and black. Like us.” Ben’s smile is jagged, dimpled. When he’s with other people, Ben keeps his face sullen and flat. But Armitage has always made him smile.

“I’m not _red_. My hair isn’t—it’s ginger! If I had hair the colour of your rock crevice, I’d be a medical marvel.”

Ben runs his free hand through Armitage’s hair, ruffling it with a broad palm, stroking softly down the back of his neck. The strength in his touch is enough to make Armitage’s face flare with heat, even in the chill of the wind from the sea.

“Your lips are red.” Ben’s fingers taste of tide pools, of kelp and salt, but when he brushes over Armitage’s lower lip with the pad of his thumb, Armitage opens for it anyway. He can’t find it in himself to be disgusted when Ben is so close, his body wide and strong and warm.

 _It’s because you’ve done nothing but kiss them for three days_ , Armitage wants to say. Or, alternatively, _yours are red too, so why don’t you kiss me again?_ But he’d sound foolish speaking with Ben’s thumb on his tongue, even though there’s no one on the windy beach to hear them.

Because Armitage prides himself on his ability to adapt to inconvenient circumstances, he decides to swipe the tip of his tongue over the pad of Ben’s thumb. If he can’t keep Ben from filling his backpack with rocks that will befoul their picnic blanket with seaweed residues and crush their falafel sandwiches, he can at least enjoy the way Ben tastes, as Ben slides his thumb deeper and adds his forefinger, too.

Even Ben’s fingers are strong, and his nails are neatly trimmed. They have to be, for what Ben’s been doing to Armitage day and night at their cottage rental. The memory of it heats Armitage’s stomach from inside, guarding him against the wind.

“You’re so pretty like this,” Ben murmurs, hushed.

If he weren’t so close to Armitage, the wind would drown his words in a rush of air. But he’s near enough for Armitage to catch the way Ben’s eyes darken when he laps at Ben’s fingers and opens his mouth wider, seductive, obedient. Praise has always left Armitage weak—he’s had little of it in his life, and so much of the opposite—but with Ben, none of Armitage’s weaknesses feel like weakness at all.

Ben tugs his fingers away from Armitage’s lips with a lewd, wet sound that even the roar of the Pacific can’t drown out. He raises his other hand, to show Armitage again the rock he holds.

Armitage can see where this is going. Ben will start talking about energy again, about crystals and sacred geometry and who knows what other occult superstitions, and before long they’ll be two old men exiled to a cottage in some distant forest, with too many cats and a local reputation for sinister magic.

Ben might not mind that lifestyle, but Armitage has grander aims, and he intends to drag his willing husband with him to the top of the world. So Armitage considers it his responsibility—his duty, really—to distract Ben from his geological obsessions.

He takes Ben’s left hand, and brings it to his mouth again. Kisses over the knuckles, still wet with spit, until his lips find the warm metal of Ben’s new wedding ring.

Ben’s catch of breath is barely audible over the ocean’s noise. But Armitage doesn’t flick his eyes up to Ben’s face. He knows the admiration he’ll see in Ben’s eyes now, as ever.

Instead his eyes catch on the rock Ben holds between them in his right hand, its glossy black surface going dull as it dries in the salt air. Indeed, the crack through it is filled with red crystals, nestled against each other like sharp little teeth.

They’re too bright to be garnets, not that Hux knows anything of semi-precious stones. But whatever they are, Ben is holding the rock the way he holds Armitage, like he’s taking it home with him and not letting it go.

The silver of Ben's ring clicks against his teeth when Armitage, in spite of himself, smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's be real, Kylo loves his cracked kyber crystal way too much to not be a rock collector in a modern AU. I call it like I see it.
> 
> For more weird fluff, follow my [twitter](https://twitter.com/sternfleck) and [tumblr](https://sternfleck.tumblr.com/).


End file.
